Capital planning and investment control (CPIC) is a key part of the drive to minimize the acquisition costs and maximize the utilization of information technology. The CPIC process has been through many changes as it has evolved over the years, with each change intended to refine the process.

HW&W’s professional staff is unique in that its members have many years of experience with the CPIC and budget processes as federal managers. This allows them to be immediately productive on client assignments and more importantly, to propose optimal strategies for the federal environment.

HW&W has participated in all phases of the CPIC process from reviewing proposals to designing specific processes. This experience has provided HW&W with insight into CPIC process improvement. This improvement can be accomplished in ways that are minimally impacted by changes in OMB reporting requirements. The resulting process can be easily integrated with enterprise architecture.

HW&W's Approach
In its CPIC assignments, HW&W found that one of the major challenges in process improvement is the need for a context for proposal review and evaluation. Proposal descriptions and reviewers’ studies provide ample detail to review a single project. What management reviewers lack is some notion of how a given proposal fits into the overall investment strategy of the organization. CPIC reviewers may not realize that two projects may be related in such a way that they have to be funded together. Conversely funding one project may preclude funding another. Similarly, a project funded in one year’s cycle may have far-reaching effects on other projects in subsequent years. Clearly some notion of context is essential to improve the long-term results of the CPIC process.

The HW&W approach to CPIC process improvement begins with developing the concept of a portfolio describing agency investments. The portfolio concept allows an agency to look not only at the OMB required stages of projects but also at each project’s relationship to the mission responsibilities of the agency. The portfolio organizes CPIC proposals into program, administrative, and infrastructure categories. The portfolio is a living document that changes as existing projects are completed and new projects are selected. In the program component, agencies can use the portfolio to determine whether all program needs are being addressed and whether duplication exists.

This enhanced process incorporates all three phases of the OMB investment management cycle: selection, control, and evaluation, and allows management to consider the benefits of each project within an agency framework. The portfolio is supported by procedures and guidelines for submitting requests for resources, criteria for ranking and evaluating requests, and procedures for monitoring and tracking project execution.

View the CPIC Case Study